Part of me
by nipponophile
Summary: The Doctor confronts the reality of a world without Donna.


_Disclaimer: Oh BBC, owners of the Doctor and Donna, if only you'd given RTD more hours to play with our favourite Doctor Who couple..._

**Part of me**

Yes, they were his arch-enemies and he hated them as much as it was possible to hate something, but right now the Doctor was actually _grateful_ that the Daleks had teleported the TARDIS to the crucible.

Admittedly, it was for rather personal reasons, but he knew, given what had transpired in the short time since her return, that he would have to tell Rose, eventually, that things between them weren't going to turn like she was hoping. He was really dreading that conversation and putting it off as long as he could. The teleporting thing, along with the whole potentially-the-end-of all-known-universes-and–reality-itself crisis that they were stuck in the middle of, was kind of helping with that, thus the weird semblance of gratitude.

After a profound and blissful night with Donna, he had been going out of his way to avoid being alone with Rose for even a second, and had ramped his usual touchy-feeliness with her right down, anxious to give Donna no further cause to doubt where his love lay.

If Rose noticed the drop-off in his enthusiasm towards her, she didn't say anything. Hopefully she thought he was just too caught up in worry about yet another showdown with the Daleks, and so thought it was better not to be too demonstrative in front of everyone else.

It meant, though, that he had to curb his public affection for Donna as well, which was a _lot_ more difficult. Feeling liberated by their mutual admission of love, it was all he could do not to want to be touching her in some way every second, and as it was, he was sure someone must have noticed how often he kept glancing over at her and smiling, his eyes shining and the colour rising in his cheeks. To her credit, Donna was very sensitive to the situation and, in company at least, she continued to treat him as a best friend would be expected.

But even Donna was not above engineering a few stolen moments with him – _for which he was so, SO thankful_ – where, aided and abetted by the TARDIS's creation of appearing/disappearing doors, darkened alcoves and appropriately-timed episodes of 'turbulence', in which he always 'happened' to be standing right next to her, they could indulge in frantic, fevered kissing, hands! – _thank God she was now completely on board with the hands!_ –and urgent whispered reassurances of _I love you I love you I love you._

So it seemed a little odd that when the time came for them to have to leave the TARDIS and finally face the Daleks that Donna seemed to be off in her own little world, lagging behind. Yet it wasn't anything he thought he had to be concerned about.

Until the door of the TARDIS slammed shut, sealing her inside.

Separating them.

Dread gripped his hearts like a vice.

He heard her calling out to him, the rising fear in her voice paralleling his own.

The Daleks thought it was his doing.

_Emotionless idiots, don't they know I would never, EVER do anything to cause me to be apart from her?_

Donna called out his name again, much more frightened now, and he fought to stop his own voice breaking.

"Stop it! She's my friend –_so much more than my friend_ - now open the door and let her out!"

_Bring her back to me!_

But when the Supreme Dalek spoke again, it was like an icy shard through his very soul.

And he felt his entire universe crumble as the TARDIS – and Donna - fell through a trapdoor and hurtled, defenceless, into the Crucible's Core.

The pain was unfathomable, like his chest was being cut open and his still-beating hearts ripped from his body and dragged down into the core with her.

His mind cried out to his would-be lover as he sensed her, terrified and alone.

Guilt at his uselessness grew blacker, hotter, heavier, until he felt like he was suffocating.

In a blind panic, and stricken with grief, he offered the Daleks the most valuable thing he had – his own life – if only it could spare hers.

"Please, I'm begging you. I'll do anything! Put me in her place, you can do anything to me, I don't care, just get her out of there!"

_Save her._

_Please._

Rose took his hand, trying to comfort him.

He barely felt it.

_We'd only just found each other! We were going to have forever!_

As he stared at the monitor and the Daleks counted down the destruction of the TARDIS, it hardly occurred to him mourn his beloved ship, so in agony was he over the loss of _her._

Some distant part of his mind registered the Daleks' pronouncing the TARDIS's demise.

And then there was just numbness.

He wondered, vaguely, if he would ever feel anything good, anything at _all_ ever again.

* * *

><p>He didn't have to wait long.<p>

Stuck in the Vault with Davros and the insanely babbling Dalek Caan, claiming that he had foreseen all of it, the Children of Time, gathered together for the final battle, at the end of everything, and that one of them would die, it was then that he felt the _anger._

"Was it you, Caan? Did you kill Donna?" he spat, feeling like a knife was twisting in his gut as the name of his lost love fell from lips still tender from her kisses.

_And then he felt sick._

Yet Davros was still not finished. Now he was talking about going on some kind of journey to reveal his soul, whatever that meant, as a precursor to the testing of the Reality Bomb. The obliteration of everything. More than ever, the Doctor wished he had Donna by his side, even just holding her hand, he knew, would help him focus and think and _hope_.

But things seemed so hope_less_. Donna was gone. The TARDIS destroyed. His friends scattered, fallen. It was just him, and Rose, trapped in their holding cells as Davros methodically and mercilessly went about his mission of humiliation and destruction.

So ruthless was he that soon even the Doctor began to wonder, of all he had seen in so many worlds, whether it really WAS he, himself, who was the most horrific, the most abominable, the REAL destroyer of worlds. Donna had told him way back that he needed someone to stop him, and as Davros' accusations rained down, the memory of everyone who had died for the cause, whose lives had been cut short because they had run with the Doctor and believed in him rushed to the front of his mind and burned there. He saw their faces even when he closed his eyes, felt the full weight of the dreadful darkness that lived inside of him.

Rose's presence didn't make him feel any better, nor did that any of his other companions, who had now been brought in by the Daleks to witness the shame of his true self being laid bare. All that registered was the yawning, aching emptiness of Donna not being there.

He knew that only _her_ presence, _her _words would have truly helped share his pain, carry the terrible burden of being who he was. She would have lovingly stroked his face, then his hair, and reminded him, firmly but with such patient gentleness, of the all the good he had done, the worlds he had saved, the brightness that shone in him and through him. She would have put her hand over his hearts and pleaded with him to not give up, because…because that was something he just never did.

But her voice had been silenced, forever. All that was left was Davros's sneering pompousness, Dalek Caans's giggling and the screams of those he had lost ringing in his ears. So loudly, he didn't at first hear that familiar whirring at the far end of the room…

* * *

><p>The Doctor couldn't recall ever having been quite as stunned as he was right at that very moment.<p>

The TARDIS, supposedly dead and gone, was materialising right in front of him! And if the TARDIS was okay, then….

_Oh, God, _she_ must be okay too! Donna must be alive! _

His hearts soared.

Disappointment that it was not she that emerged first from the TARDIS was ameliorated somewhat by the utter astonishment of coming face to face with an exact duplicate of himself.

But his elation at seeing her a few seconds later was cruelly snatched away as she was brought down. He watched her crumple and fall even as his hearts did the same.

_I just got you back! How can you leave me when I just got you back?_

But with the end of reality itself only seconds away, perhaps it was better that Donna would be spared the pain of seeing it happen.

* * *

><p>The Doctor had learnt many valuable lessons in his time, but the one he had learnt today was the most important of all:<p>

_Never underestimate his Earthgirl. _

For in the few seconds between her apparent – second - demise and the end of everything, she had re-emerged as the Doctor-Donna foretold by the Ood and saved them _all. _Saved _everything. _Twenty-seven planets and universes known and unknown. She had stopped the Reality Bomb and Davros and the Daleks and rescued the whole of existence with her brilliance and magnificence.

The Doctor thought he would literally explode with pride, just basking in her reflected glory.

Oh, she was still the same Donna, all right, everything he loved about her - attitude, wit, humor, fire, spirit - shone as brightly as ever.

But now it was backed by the extraordinary confidence that came with knowing she was part Time-Lord, with a mind as big as her heart. Knowing, _believing _- at last - that she was good enough. _Special_.

She was a force of nature, a force _beyond _nature. She fairly glowed with it all, and it rendered the Doctor almost breathless with admiration and love.

Right then, he was perfectly content to do whatever she told him, watching her as she took charge, capable and commanding and _beautiful. _

She didn't know what she was doing to him with all her techno-babble, gadget prowess and gung-ho-ness, but she would find out soon enough when he got her alone after all this was over.

He could hardly wait.


End file.
